I Called Him River
by Iwritestuff83
Summary: I’ve always been at odds with this world ever since that strange day that nobody remembers. Lucky for me I dreamed of a dragon who understands. His name is River, at least that’s what I called him. Haku/Chihiro, Chihiro pov, Full sum inside
1. I Remember

**I Called Him River **

_(This story will be told in Chihiro's point of view, in a sort of 'looking back' perspective. So... yes I am aware that much of her ruminations are not age-appropriate... but that's only because an older Chihiro is telling the story. Of course it goes without saying, but Spirited Away and all Characters within are not owned by me, but this story was an explosion of fan-ficcy madness that was my own design. Adult Language, some underage drinking, and some mild parental/child abuse...)_

Summary: I've always been at odds with this world ever since that strange day that nobody remembers. Lucky for me I dreamed of a dragon who understands. His name is River, at least that's what I called him.

The _**"Bold Italic" **_text you'll find is usually just snarky asides I've injected into the story, no character is actually saying them, just a little added flavor to certain situations that I find some sort of morbid humor in.

_**I remember**_

My dramatic change of character occurred about five years ago. However, it was not as gradual a transition as you would think. It was very sudden, occurring without rhyme, reason or provocation. I remember feeling a vivid and inexplicable shift in awareness and perspective. But then, lots of inexplicable things happened that day that ignored the ever lawful rhyme and reason.

We were moving… far, far away; into a big blue house on a steep hill. And I remember absolutely _hating_ the idea. Pleading and begging not to move didn't seem to work on my parents, so I decided I was going to be absolutely miserable and complain about absolutely _everything _if I could not get my way. Maybe if they saw how unhappy I was they would change their minds about the whole thing and wouldn't move, or at the very least they would let me stay with one of my friends for like… five or ten years.

I was really stupid back then…

I remember us driving through the new town and as we passed by the new school, mother pointed it out to me, and I stuck my tongue at it for all I was worth like the action could hurt its feelings.

Did I mention I was really stupid back then?

I remember how dad got us on the wrong road somehow and instead of being on the top of the hill, we were stuck somewhere looking up at our big blue house. And then daddy wanted to take a one of his brilliant, (sure to get us severely lost) short cuts. And that's when everything gets really confusing.

We found a tunnel to an abandoned amusement park and we hang out there for a while taking in the sights. You would think a nice unexpected outing like this would be easy for a kid to remember. But it turns out, this outing wasn't easy for anyone to remember. Not even for a kid or even my parents.

We really don't know what happened and to this day it's still a very touchy subject that brings a glare from my father and a worried look from my mother. But somehow we lost three days while we were exploring that abandoned theme park. Each of us swear we had only walked through the tunnel, looked around a little while and walked back out. According to mom and dad I had run off ahead of them to look beyond the trickling stream and they had lost me for a little while. I disagree because I distinctly remember them being ahead of me and I had to run to keep up with them and I _really _did not want to be in that creepy abandoned amusement park in any way. _They _were the ones who'd insisted! I even remember mother saying "Chihiro, hurry it up!" This I _am _sure of.

But what I am not sure of is that feeling. Incontrovertible, like the color of the sky, as undeniable as air through your lungs. I felt like something was missing… Something. I looked back at the tunnel, I remember feeling a pure sense of longing, but couldn't explain where it came from, what its source was. It's that nagging sort of feeling you would get if you were setting out on a big vacation, your bags are packed, your reservations are set up, you have the tickets in your hand, and all of your papers, but you can't shake the feeling that you're forgetting something… It might not be something terribly vital to the trip, but you know it's something you'd be missing if you left it behind… Only you just can't figure out what it is.

Despite my inexplicable reservation…We were all in agreement that we couldn't have possibly spent more than thirty minutes in the place… tops. Yet when we left out, there was more than a day's worth of fallen leaves on the car and it smelled funny when we got in, so dad thought to check the cooler, and holy hell it cleared us out of that car in a millisecond! The water in the cooler had long ago melted, our packed lunch spoiled and Gods does it make my stomach hurt even now to think about the smell! Not knowing what else to do, dad decided to just take the cooler out of the car and leave it stashed away in some bushes. I made a joke about how it was unfair to any animals passing by to run afoul of a stink bomb, and dad joked right back about using the cooler as a hunting trap. It was sort of funny… But I do not think he and I were laughing for the same reasons.

Odd as the cooler incident was, we didn't think much of it, dad absently suggested that maybe I had nabbed a sandwich and forgot to properly close the lid of the cooler and all the ice melted. I vehemently denied this and insisted that mother had taken out a sandwich for _him_ earlier in the day, and in an unexpected spurt of intelligence I also pointed out that there was no way all the ice could melt and all the food could have gone bad in such a short period of time anyway. They both agreed and dad muttered something about 'cheap department store coolers' and generally decided stranger things have happened than this; so it was probably nothing to worry about. But then we got home, and we all realized just how strange things could actually get.

At first We were all immediately surprised that the movers were not there yet by the time we had pulled up to the house. Dad laughed and looked back over his shoulder at mom.

"See we even made it before the movers! I told you not to worry." I was behind her so I couldn't see, but just from the motion of her head and the sound she made I could tell she had just rolled her eyes. I ran over to the mailbox not exactly knowing why but something just compelled me. Impulsively I opened it and took out the wad of envelopes. There were lots of 'welcome to the neighborhood' letters with a bunch of coupons we'd never have the time to use before their expiration dates.

It is strange, but for some reason I can remember things from this time very clearly down to the smallest minute detail. Looking back on it I think it's because I was so disturbed at not being able to fully remember our trip through the tunnel that I was overcompensating by being extra perceptive of things. For example, I will always remember that mom wore her pink (she calls it coral) three quarter sleeve V-neck shirt and pale khaki Capri pants. I remember giggling to myself as the exact shape of dad's wallet roughly outlined his back pocket as he bent over to grab up the newspaper and briefly scanned through the headlines (obviously not catching the date) before he opened the door.

And while it was kind of mean of me, I remember snidely whispering to myself "Maybe he should lose a little weight, or maybe he should carry less _credit cards _and _cash." _It was such an out of the blue thing for me to even think, let alone say…But I laughed out loud like it was the funniest thing in the world and while I had no reason to believe it was at that moment, I just giggled my happy little ass off. Mom gave me the (do you need me to check your temperature with the rectal thermometer?) look and I piped down right away.

It's possible she thought I was laughing at her for being wrong about the movers. My mother really couldn't stand being wrong about things… like…I mean, _anything _at all_. _It's sort of a weird pet peeve to have isn't it? No one can be right about everything, _every _time. How would they ever learn anything? But that's just how she was I guess, nobody is perfect. It wouldn't be too long before I learned just how far from perfect my parents really were.

I distinctly recall the exact pitch dad's voice reached as he released an uncontrolled, undignified squawk of total amazement upon opening the door and seeing that every piece of furniture we owned was already neatly unpacked inside. I think that was when my parents started to get really unsettled with this string of unusual events. Because there was no possible way in all the seven levels of hell those movers could have unpacked the entire contents of the truck already and left so fast. Especially not without getting a tip at least. Father was the first one to try to make light of this obvious irregularity

"I take it back Miyuki I guess we missed the movers by a long shot." He said with a forced laugh.

"Honey that's not funny at all. They must have worked very hard to get all of our things in here so fast. And we weren't around to help!"

So she said but I could tell by the tiniest upwards curl at the corner of her lips that she was feeling rather smug at being right. Everything seemed different now somehow. I always knew my mother liked being right about things _especially_ when it came to arguments with daddy. But I never noticed the obvious childish glee she got from it before now. It was… a very disturbing new light to see the women you wanted to grow up to be like in. And now when I think on it I can't determine a single defining reason as to why I _would _want to grow up and be like her. Okay she was fairly nice, a decent cook, she dressed well and was very pretty.

But were those not all qualities I could already possess In myself, if not learn elsewhere from another even more qualified source? Aside from the pretty thing I guess… Yeah… mother _was_ pretty, I thought she was the prettiest mother that lived on the block at our old house… I could be biased though, but maybe that was it. Did I want to grow up and be pretty like she was? Sure… I guess I did. It would be nice. But pretty wasn't everything.

Wow… where was all of this coming from and why was I thinking in such a way? I think I was starting to even freak myself out at that point.

I felt like I suddenly had a top-down view on life rather always looking up or between the legs of the taller ones. Okay… Physically I still was looking from that same perspective, but mentally I suddenly felt taller than giants; completely at ease and far more in tune with things that went unnoticed before… Mentally I felt taller than daddy, taller than the hill we lived on or the highest building of the Tokyo skyline… But the real pronounced difference hit me when mom and dad finally noticed the time lapse we had all unknowingly experienced.

They both had a back and forth tirade about the mover's remarkable skill at getting the whole house unpacked so expediently, meanwhile I slowly carried all the boxes marked 'Chihiro' up to my newly assigned room. Heh… wow kinda makes it sound like a prison doesn't it? But to a kid, what's the difference? We're all handcuffed to our parents for at least sixteen or eighteen years right? We can only hope we'll get lucky and get good ones in this life. I think I got lucky…

"Miyuki! I only just thought of it but what if those movers took some of our stuff with them, knowing we wouldn't notice until they were long gone!"

Sort of…

For a full hour there were several outbursts about not being able to find this .. or that. It was always the tiniest and most valuable of trinkets and every single time any one of them would begin to raise a furor, or threaten to call the company CEO on the movers, I would just find a random box that had the exact item they were ready to rage about. Once the swell of paranoia died down and all family heirlooms and designer watches were accounted for, I very accidentally happened to look over at the pile of envelopes sitting on top of the newspaper in the kitchen. I had already looked over the contents so they really were of no interest, but for some reason the postmark date caught my eye.

"Hmmm?" Silly little post office, that couldn't be right, somebody must've used the wrong stamp, or maybe the computer had a malfunction. I know it was the post office and that it was very unlikely they would make such a mistake but stranger things have happened right? Out of sheer necessity I looked at the date on the newspaper. And that was _very _interesting. I found dad in the new study.

"Dad… will you be watching the game tomorrow night?"

"Of course Chihiro, We won't have time to go shopping for _your_ new T.V. yet so you won't be able to watch your…"

"I know daddy… and its okay… I don't mind." I really didn't though. But I know only a very short while ago I would have pouted about that indefinitely. Dad looked rather confounded by this but he just nodded and went back to unpacking the things to make his desk look very functional yet elegant.

"The Antlers were playing against Trinita… right?" I asked with an air of nonchalance.

"That's right honey, since when did you get into sports huh?" He sounded suddenly pleased, as if he had found the long lost son he'd always wanted hidden far back, on the top shelf of the closet.

"_**There you are! I forgot I even had you up here! Now let's go place baseball!"**_

"Well, it's okay… it seems like a lot of fun to watch other guys playing in an athletic event."

Whoa… What? I didn't talk like that… like ever… I didn't know it at the time but I am now aware that this was my first successful approach at facetiousness. And it went _right _over his head.

"That's my girl! But why do you ask Chihiro?"

"Because I think Trinita's going to win that game."

"What!?" I realized daddy was _extremely _expressive. His eyes had several degrees of widening that it was hard for anyone to match. It must have been difficult for someone as animated as he was to climb the corporate ladder. His face suddenly relaxed into an all too familiar expression.

How would I describe it? I guess I would call it the 'Oh I almost forgot this is _Chihiro_ I'm talking to' face.

"_**There there now hysterical little girl, there are no monsters under your bed and Santa Clause really IS real. Here have a cookie and go lay down…"**_

"Chihiro… honey, there's no way Trinita would win against my Antlers, they're the best team in the league okay love?" See what I mean? Can't you just taste the fresh batch of _condescending? _

"That's not what it says in the paper." I said not looking up at him.

"Dear, those are just silly sports columnists trying to fill up space with projections and misguided predictions. That's all honey… everyone's got an opinion but that doesn't always make them ri-"

" 'Antler's suffers surprising upset. Trinita celebrates season's first victory.' Even with Honda's unfortunate ankle injury early in the game, no one could have foreseen Trinita bringing the mighty Antler's winning streak to a-' "

Dad snatched the paper from me and was scanning the article the very next second. His eyes couldn't seem to decide if they wanted to widen or narrow. I decided to leave daddy alone for a while and sit at the big bay window of my new room. I don't know why, or how but somehow I've come out of that tunnel a different person. I am suddenly finding this hilltop home to be the loveliest place I've ever lived in. I only had about ten minutes to reflect on my new found peace with things before my house erupted into a parade of confusion once more…

"MIYUKI!!! What is today's Date!?"

I remember sighing a lot that day…


	2. War of the Oginos

_**War of the Oginos**_

It was total war in the Ogino household…

No, it was the equivalent to the Feudal Era in this house…

NO…it's the Feudal Era, both World Wars and the yet to come First Galactic Conflict between the Moon colonies and the Martian colonies; all combined and compacted into 1800 square feet of living space…

The elder Ogino's were absolutely at wits end with their poor daughter. Poor daughter being _me_. They just couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, and I suspect they might have thought I was some kind of evil doppelganger that replaced their real child.

But they're probably just being over-dramatic. And there's nothing wrong with me!

Someone needs to be asking what is wrong with _them._

See, they're problem with me is _acceptance_. While that day, (or three days, however you wish to look at it) was certainly a disturbing and very strange occurrence, I can accept what happened to us and I am not really bothered by it. We all turned out safe and in tact didn't we? Aside from daddy missing his game and the minor inconvenience of rescheduling a few things, no harm was done, it's not like anyone suffered a horrible, unimaginable fate or grew a snout and curly tail and eaten….Wait…_what?_

The point is, I _accept_ what happened that day, and I even find a little humor in it. I liked to imagine we were 'borrowed' by aliens and they gave us all the secrets of the universe before dropping us off three days later with no memory of it just to screw with us. Or maybe we had an adventure where we had to befriend a dragon and fight off an evil witch but had no memory of it all upon our return. What the hell did I know? What did _any _of them know? But they simply can't _stand _that I could treat this unexplained phenomenon with such casual flair. They hate that I can just accept it and not be disturbed.

So now we come to my problem with _them. _It's their _denial. _Even though it was their reactions to the event that was the most memorable in how explosive and paranoid and frantic they had been, they are now at the point where they just want to deny it all. The fact that it happened, their reactions to it, and well… everything! At first they had no problem with acknowledging that the event occurred. That night dad called an emergency family meeting in the middle of the half unpacked kitchen and he took both mom's and my hands in his with a grave look upon his face as if he were about to inform us he'd been diagnosed with a terminal illness.

"That tunnel was cursed" He said with no small amount of drama. My mother gave a frightened little whimper and I just sat there stone faced and unresponsive.

"Chihiro, you were right for not wanting to go in there to begin with. I am sorry we didn't listen to you."

I could only lower my eyes towards the tabletop at his unexpected apology, unable to face the deep irrational fear warring in his eyes. It just… hurt to see my father, such a big strong man, be so visibly shaken by something like this. It was like meeting your idolized superhero in person for the very first time, only to find that he was really just a skinny bald man in a wig and a suit with cotton padded muscles.

Yet had I known this was going to be the last time dad was going to admit I was right about something, I would have reacted more than I did.

That night, at our emergency family meeting, we decided we wouldn't talk about what happened outside of these walls. Nowhere was it stated that we wouldn't even talk about it with one another.

And that's why everything got all screwed up.

I came bouncing down the stairs some time later, showing off my latest creation. It was a full color drawing I had done, and it had taken me all night to complete. I was particularly proud of this one because it was the first one I had ever completed with colored pencils. Before I had always kept my pictures in black and white because I was afraid coloring them in would ruin them somehow. The first person I saw was mom and that would be the first person I would show. It's funny, I never wanted to show my drawings to anyone before. I was always too shy, but now didn't care if all the world could see.

"Wh-what is this Chihiro?" Mom's brow was furrowed, her lips pressed together in a tight thin line. Her head was cantered slightly to one side as if angling it a certain way would help the picture make sense to her. It was not the reaction I was expecting… or wanted.

"It's the white dragon that lives on the other side of the tunnel." I said quite simply. He was something right out of my imagination, just a blurry image that would appear quite out of nowhere and disappear in much the same way. He was just a fuzzy white dragon with a green mane, I think his eyes will be green too but I just haven't decided yet. I didn't know what his story was so I gave him one.

Mother chewed at her lower lip.

"When we went into the tunnel, we found a dragon…" I pointed to a small scene I had drawn into the top left margin of the paper. "And here you can see he's hurt himself with a paper cut, because he was trying to make a crane origami and didn't know how."

"O-ohh.." She rubbed at the front of her neck like it was sore then leaned forward, trying to get a better look at the picture. Something about her movements seemed very artificial to me… but I didn't say anything about it, just continued explaining my picture to her. Perhaps if she understood the story behind the images, she would feel a little more at ease, instead of having to just pretend.

"So we helped him out a little, Here you are right here…" I pointed to a tiny color pencil version of mom on the paper and I actually caught a little smile from her.

"You had a band-aid in your pocket-book, and you bandaged him up, and I showed him how to make a crane."

"Where's your father?" She actually sounded like she was truly interested now.

"Over here; he's cleaning up all the papers the dragon messed up."

And mother laughed, and it made me smile to hear it because I knew it was genuine.

"And what is this little picture over here?"

"That one is…"

"What is that?" A deep voice spoke up from behind, and I knew it was daddy, and I also knew for some reason that something wasn't okay.

Mom didn't seem to pick up on the vibe.

"Oh, Chihiro just drew a picture, a very good one, in fact you can even-" Her words were cut off as dad snatched up the drawing from the table and held it up close to his face. He reminded me of a police dog sniffing out an article for the scent of some illegal contraband. After his odd little investigative display had concluded, he looked up at me with a strange look in his eyes.

"Chihiro… What did we talk about the night we moved in?"

Wait… what? I don't understand, just how was me drawing a harmless little picture breaking the rules? We had all agreed not to tell anyone else about what happened with the tunnel and the three day lapse. So what's wrong with drawing a simple picture? I looked from him, to my mother and she had fixed her face into a doll like expression; pretty, and motionless.

"Answer me Chihiro." He demanded with an alarming amount of urgency in his voice.

I was so thrown at suddenly being put on the spot like this I just fell into the comfort of my new found power of snark.

"We talked about a lot of things dad. We talked about the new school, the shopping mall a few miles from here, and the soccer game…"

"Don't toy with me Chihiro, you know well what I'm talking about!" His voice was like cannon fire, thunderous blasts reverberating off the far walls of the still mostly empty new house. I think dad's caught on to my new facetious attitude.

"Daddy, I don't understand, it's just a picture."

"We. All. Agreed, that this… _subject _was not to be spoken of didn't we?"

"Yes but…"

"Didn't we!?"

I fell into silence, because I just didn't know what to say to him. I know he wanted me to agree but I just couldn't do that, because it would have been false. I remember very clearly what was said that night, we shouldn't speak about it outside of these walls. All very well and good; but now, he's going back on even that and he's standing there looking for all the world like a raging bull ready to go on a rampage over one silly little drawing? There was hardly anything on the picture linking to the events that occurred. The main centerpiece of the picture was my imaginary white dragon. There was the tiniest picture of a pinkish colored wall with a black hole that very closely represented the tunnel. But anyone who'd never seen it before wouldn't know what that was.

"Go upstairs to your room." He all but growled, and I did so silently, although I did entertain the very suicidal thought of asking for my picture back.

Of course I only _briefly_ entertained the thought.

When I got to my room, I very slowly closed the door behind me in a confounded daze. I just pressed my back against it and let deep calm breaths flow in and out of me. I harshly raked my fingers through my hair and slipped out the strange new hair tie I'd discovered the very night that everything went all crazy. It was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen. It sparkled like a beacon every time the faintest of light touched it. It's color was somewhere between red and purple. I'm sure mother would have a name for it pulled right out of some designer catalogue.

I wrapped the hair tie around my wrist twice and slipped down to the floor against the door, staring blankly into the room. As if attracted by some magnetic pull, my eyes found the small pile of rough unfinished sketches that were beginning to depict the next 'episodes' of my imaginary adventure with the white dragon. I had scrawled out epic images of dad standing heroically before me and mom, bravely facing down the glob-like greenish brown slime covered 'stink monster.' I felt something deep inside me snap right then; and it was over the dull, muffled notes of the argument from downstairs that I went into a frenzy of ripping and shredding. Every one of those poor undeserving sketches fell prey to 'Angry Chihiro.' I threw myself on the bed and glared up at the ceiling, letting mom and dad's argument become a white noise against my brooding thoughts.

Some time went by, and things eventually went quiet. I could tell by the light and tentative footfalls that it was my mother pacing outside my bedroom door. I turned my back to it and closed my eyes. I was a little mad at her too you know? She didn't stand up for me to dad; she didn't even try. Instead she just… froze and went into a semi catatonic state. And while I hadn't been listening to what was being said during their short argument, I could tell just by the tone of the voices that mother hardly put up a fight, not even for herself. It suddenly was no wonder that she clung to every instance she was right about something. She had to submit to daddy on almost everything else.

He was the law that governed over everything, and she was little more than an indentured servant, made to prostrate herself on his every whim. It was not unusual for a husband/wife relationship to take on this form. But it was chilling to suddenly come to the realization that _my_ mom and dad had this kind of dynamic in their marriage. I suppose all this time, without even knowing it, I let myself fall under the naïve pretense that maybe _their _relationship was different from most of the others around us. I thought they were different… I thought _we _were different.

Mother had finally rallied enough of her courage and I heard the door open. She quietly padded over to the remnants of my rough drawings; and I could hear her gathering them up and tossing them into the waste bin. The mattress dipped to her weight as she sat down behind me; I thought I could almost feel her warmth, but I might have just imagined it. There was nothing between us but silence for a long while. So long was the silence that I started to imagine what must be going on in her head. I started to think of the things she might say to me if she ever spoke. Would she apologize and try to implore me to understand why dad was acting the way he did? Would she gently place her hand on my shoulder and tell me it's all okay? I even imagined that she would become my secret co-conspirator against dad's paranoid iron rule.

"Chihiro…" I almost jerked at the sound of her voice, my heart rate picked up…

Would she be on my side?

"You…"

Or would she disappoint me?

"Just…don't draw pictures like this again." And she said nothing else, just got up and left the room, closing the door with a quiet 'click.'

Suddenly 'disappointed' didn't seem a good enough word. Even now I don't think I can find the words to accurately describe what I felt in that moment. I know it was something hard, and wrenching. Something that caused my cheeks to flush red hot , and made me clutch at my sheets to the point that they almost tore. It almost didn't feel like a '_feeling' _at all. Instead, it was like it's own entity, another conscious, sentient creature born inside me, wanting to take control. I'd soon find this entity to be the rebel in me. And she had a nasty sense of retribution.

So, they didn't want me to draw pictures like those anymore? Fine…

I swore then and there, that I would never draw pictures _like those _ever again…

In my old drawings, I had my parents right beside me in our adventure, bravely fending off horrible monsters and helping kind dragons in their time of need. But no more would those images grace my sketchbook. That was a promise…

I gave them about a two week long reprieve before I showed my parents _just _how much I thought of them. In that time, we spent a weekend at an Onsen. It was a very nice, very _normal _family trip for relaxation. Dad was acting overly nice throughout, and I couldn't decide if it was because he was pleased that both mother and I had fallen in line and were 'behaving' so to speak. Or, if it was his way of being apologetic for how he acted before. To me, I really didn't care why his act suddenly changed, and it was a good thing I didn't because it turned out our trip to the Onsen was just a business endeavor. I overheard daddy talking about some tip that a few high society prospective clients frequented this place. I suddenly saw how very artificial our lives were. Yet the only _real_ thing that happened to us, inexplicable though it may have been, he wanted to ignore it, avoid it like it was a contagious virus.

"_**Can't have too much reality mucking things up now can we?"**_

I smiled and behaved as I should on the surface but all I wanted to do was deface him in front of everyone. Of course I'm not suicidal, so I had enough sense to wait till we got home to start screwing with them. I let the rebel loose and began the war that was to last the remainder of the year. When we were home, I made sure I finished my dinner and got washed up extra early. I pleasantly bid my parents goodnight and retired for the evening. When I got to my room, I turned off the light and sat by the window with my sketchbook and color pencils, using the wide ledge of the bay window as a desk, and the moon for light. That night, I drew and scribbled until my hand cramped, I took a short break, flexed my fingers, and drew some more.

I probably only got about two hours of sleep that night, but in the end I still think it was worth the lost rest. That morning I acted as normal; ate my breakfast, while watching the early morning news on the small kitchen T.V. I went on to school and had a great day, all the while thinking of the scene I'd walk into when I got home. I guess I was just trying to make a statement.

When I got home I immediately felt the intense quiet. No it wasn't _actually _quiet; because the T.V. in the living room was on and turned down low. I could also hear the low hum of the dryer going from down the hall. But still there was a silence about the place. Like the kind a protagonist from one of those American serials would hear right before an attack.

"_**It's quiet… a little TOO quiet."**_

I did not call out for mother, instead I quietly drifted through my own house like a cat-burglar. When I reached the top of the stairs and saw my bedroom door open, I knew that the little present I left for mom and dad had been discovered. Calmly I walked into my room to find mom sitting on my bed with a dreadful, far away look in her eyes. She was staring out the bay window, with a stack of my drawings in her hands. In my first dramatic act of rebellion I created a mural of sorts. A whole collage of dark little drawings with disturbing images and figures had been taped to the wall just behind my headboard.

There were probably dozens of random images I pulled right out of my dreams… and nightmares. Some of the figures were recurring characters; like that witch with the disproportionate body, her long painted fingernails always pointing menacingly at some poor unfortunate creature I left out of view. There was a shadow-like wraith with a white mask that had an insatiable hunger, and was usually depicted eating some other poor unfortunate. They were odd, crude, horrifying creations. The kinds of things a kid could only imagine on nights she stayed up way past her bedtime.

"Why did you draw these things?" Her whisper was so soft I almost missed it. She continued to blankly stare out of the window.

"Because they're the things I see in my nightmares." I said without even thinking about it. Her eyes shifted towards me but her head did not, instead she opted to fix me with a sideway glance.

"And since I cannot talk to you or dad about them…" I continued purposefully…

"I thought I would draw them out to make me feel better."

"And how is this supposed to make you feel better?" Her voice rose slightly in volume.

"I heard somewhere that if something scares you, if you draw it on a paper you can trap it there, then you can tear the paper up or burn it." I wanted her to feel the sense of neglect she left me with. I wanted her to understand that her and dad completely rejecting any discussion on the matter was unacceptable, that I needed to talk about it, and wanted to talk to them. I wanted her to feel ashamed that I would have to resort to a silly superstition about drawing your fears on a paper, instead of looking to them for support.

If she truly cared, that is exactly how she would feel, she should have understood.

"What were you thinking Chihiro!? What if your father had seen these?" But of course she didn't… It was like a gut blow, I wanted to stagger back. How can she be so blind? How can she not see what this means to me? So I kind of… retaliated?

"Oh… I don't know mother… maybe he would get mad, yell for a few hours, then treat us to an Onsen over the weekend, only to ignore our existence when we're alone, then play the role of doting father and husband when his clients and business partners come around." That hot and hurting feeling was back and it was like my mouth was just going without my control. She looked at me with an astounded expression on her face, she was perched on the edge of the bed as if she were about to jump right up and come at me. Her cheeks were flushed red and for a second she almost looked embarrassed, like a kid who had her skirt pulled down in front of the class.

"Y-you… How… DARE you speak against your father that way!? He provides for and takes care of you and you _will _respect him for it!" But why did it sound more like she was trying to reassure herself rather than reprimand me? Still I was too busy being mad to think about it. I felt bigger than her somehow, an illusion I'm sure, but it was one I would buy into and believe with all my might. Perhaps the illusion was caused by the fact that I was standing, and she was still seated. We seemed about the same size in that moment.

"You are right mother… Father does deserve my respect… He is strong, and brave, and would never let something like a creepy old amusement park and a few drawings scare him." I was starting to get really good at this sarcasm thing.

Mother's eyes widened as far as they could go, and in that moment I felt like I was looking into the deep blue ocean, trying to see the very bottom, but knowing I'd drown before I could. I got the strange feeling, that in that moment, there was something she wanted to say, something she wanted to tell me. Perhaps I would somehow be granted a short-cut to the ocean's abyss; without having to don the diving gear. However the moment was lost, the secret reburied. She stood up rigidly and broke eye contact, slowly she moved towards me.

I held my position, stiff and steadfast, a defiant frown etched into my face as I looked up at her. She looked back at me, her eyes were tired, her expression impassive. "

"You must stop behaving this way Chihiro. If he saw these, he would get very upset"

She walked past me and grabbed the door handle.

"You will stay in your room, and do not come out until I call you down for supper. I want you to sit and think about your actions." Then she walked out, no doubt going to destroy my pictures, and quietly closed the door behind her. I heard a little 'click' in the locking mechanism, then I tried the knob, finding it wouldn't open. So… she actually locked me in.

That was fine… Is what I told myself.

That night, mom _'forgot'_ to call me down to dinner. And that was just fine by me as well. Besides, all those hours alone, locked away in my room gave me time to brood. The ravenous gurgle of my belly only fueled that dark little beast that wrung its hands villainously in my core, and viciously coaxed me with its morbid little suggestions.

_Rebel! _it said, over and over again, louder than each time before it. In my current temper, I was a little less that resistant to it. It was another long night, sitting by the bay window; the tell-tale black plume of smoke drifting from the roof told me that mother had indeed destroyed my pictures, or at the very least was burning them in the fireplace at that very moment. This too, was completely _fine _by me. After all, there were much more where those came from. My nightmares and twisted senseless dreams made sure I had a good, healthy supply of creepy images to recreate. She wanted me to think about my actions… I did just that. All I thought about in those intense lonely hours was my next act of rebellion.

Another week went by. A week of relative calm, a false peace. My nightmares grew stranger and they fueled my dark creations. This time I made sure to cause enough of a commotion that my father would _have _to notice. This particular project took more than just one night to complete. I had to stay up three nights in a row and I also had to use the time between school assignments. I also had to _'borrow' _some supplies from school as I had exhausted very page in my little sketchbook. It was a lucky thing that I had saved the money from my allowance and birthday gifts, cause I suspected, after this I wouldn't be seeing an allowance for a very long time.

That morning, one week later, I woke to mother's scream. The shrill sound didn't cause me to bolt upright, or jolt awake. I opened my eyes slowly, and stared up at the ceiling, completely calm but knowing that it would not last. Because just outside the door to my room, I knew my parents were observing my attempt at decorating the barren walls of the entire second floor of our new house. And from the sound of it, their tastes did not reflect my own…

"…."

"…."

"…."

Perhaps it was an inherited trait. But me and my father could stretch a silence far past the point of unbearably uncomfortable. My mother, unfortunate as she was, had been caught in the cross fire of our silent war. She was seated in a chair behind dad's desk, close to the far corner of the study, rather than right beside him. She kept drawing in a breath, clearly wanting to say something, but losing the will under the weight of the dreadful, horrible silence. Everyone knew that words would be coming, unpleasant words… but the tension, the palpable tension that could only be borne of anxiety laden silence permeated the air to the point that it almost felt stuffy and difficult to breath.

Back in the old house, dad had always adopted two personas. One was the family man, that forced us to watch football games and be on hand to run back and forth from the kitchen to bring him snacks, but would bark and growl like a rabid dog if you blocked the television screen during a crucial play. This was the guy who planned random trips out to the park for no reason, and always got an excited gleam in his eyes when he caught the scent of mom's chanko nabe being prepared. And then there was dad, the business man. This persona only showed himself when dad was settled into his cramped study, narrowing his eyes into the blue light of his desk top screen and moving stacks of paper around to various spots on his desk. This dad persona was an automaton, a marvel of functioning gears and cogs all moving with smooth and swift efficiency. I would sometimes come into the study and interrupt his work with whatever inane little issue I had at the time. But dad did not growl or foam at the mouth for the intrusion, he would simply level me with that certain no nonsense stare, and somehow in about five words or less he would say just what I needed to hear to solve whatever my issue was. It was like he was tapped into something in those moments of intense concentration. Whenever daddy was in his study, he was in complete control of everything, from the contents on his desk to the very air molecules in the room.

But this was a new house, and a new study, it was much bigger than the old one. Maybe he hadn't gotten used to it yet, or maybe that commanding aura was only so potent in a much smaller space, but here it didn't feel like he was holding himself together, the tightness in his jaw and the flush of his face said that he was only barely keeping his composure. It was like cracks in an armor that had once been impenetrable. I wasn't intimidated at all, even though I knew I was in trouble. But whatever, I just didn't care about what happened, I just wanted them to … to…

"So you have nothing to say about this?" He spared a dirty look towards the impressive pile of dog-eared drawings sitting on his desk. Then leveled his eyes back to me expectantly.

"You said… we couldn't talk about it." I replied cheekily.

Another persona was born in the study that day…

Dad could yell _really_ loud when the spirits moved him.

I probably shouldn't have drawn them as pigs, I guess that _was _a bit much…

I really don't know where this indignant sense of rebellion came from. I felt like, well.. Like they owed it to me to at least acknowledge what happened and not try to strike it from their minds, their memories, their lives. I cannot say why it was so important to me that they remember, it just…_was. _It didn't matter what happened I needed them to try, needed them to face it no matter how strange and frightening, because if my parents couldn't face it, then I would have to do it alone… If I had to be petulantly disobedient for them to see then I would be so, regardless of consequence…

At least that's what I thought at the time…

Before things got so ugly….

This was going to be a much longer chapter, or at least I had a lot more planned for it. But then I saw how monstrously big it was getting and had to find a cut off point somewhere... This seemed to be the best place. Sorry if it seems abrupt. I know the pacing seems slow now but hang in there guys! I promise it'll pick up soon, and our favorite jade eyed dragon will be making an appearance shortly... I promise! please read and review!


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